Trapped in Time
by Pan-Tastique
Summary: A tragic accident caused now fifteen-year-old Phineas Flynn's biological father to decease. The teenager does not want to give up on his father and decides to seek a way to reverse time and save his father. What he doesn't know, is that in order to save his father, he has to pay a cruel price...


"Phineas! Cut it out already!"

Fifteen-year-old Phineas Flynn spent his afternoon throwing paper clots at his twenty-year-old sister, who was busy doing her homework.  
"Lighten up, Candace!" the fifteen-year-old said with a grin on his face. "It's Christmas! There's no need to be doing your homework now. Is that really all you came over for?"

His sister let out a deeply annoyed sigh. "You don't understand, Phineas," she said. "This isn't any kind of ordinary homework... I need to get this done by the beginning of the second semester, which is, as you might know, right after Christmas. So I'm kind of in a hurry!"

"Then why didn't you finish it earlier?"

The smug tone in her brother's voice was the thing that set Candace off. "Because- I didn't have enough time to do so!" she said, while turning her head toward her brother, despite of the rosy colour of her cheeks. "Don't you have something better to do? Build something idiotic? Where's Perry?"

"Idiotic?" Phineas mumbled. "We already finished, Candace."

"Phineas..." Candace grunted underneath her breath. "...GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"

She stood up, grabbing and pushing the fifteen-year-old toward the door.

"Exit for you!" Candace shouted, as she slammed the door shut behind Phineas' back.

"Attitude," Phineas muttered between his teeth. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked downstairs.

He found his stepbrother Ferb sitting on the counter while eating a bag of crisps as he entered the kitchen.

The green-haired Brit, who had just turned sixteen a few days earlier, nodded at his stepbrother as the two saw each other.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, bro?" Phineas asked.

Ferb nodded again. Not only because he had his mouth full, but also because he wasn't that much of a speaker. Ferb was a man of action.

But the sixteen-year-old still spoke more frequently than he used to when the boys were ten. Back then, he'd usually say one line per day. Now, he'd most of the time talk a little more. Yet, Ferb still valued actions more than words.

"What's the problem?" Ferb asked after swallowing the crisps. "You seem a little upset."

"Candace," Phineas said, while rolling his eyes. "She's been up in her room all week! She hasn't even bothered trying to bust us to mom a single time!"

"Well, I'd say, enjoy it for as long as it lasts," Ferb said, while tossing a crisp into the air and catching it with his mouth. "She's going to be all over our plans again before you know it."

Phineas shrugged. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "I'm not saying that I don't like how she's not trying to mess up everything. It's a lot more peaceful in the backyard when she leaves us alone. It's just..."

The fifteen-and-a-half-year-old ran a hand through his red hair. "It's just that I don't understand what could possibly be so time-consuming that it takes her weeks to do and requires so much concentration that usual main priority "busting the brothers" gets left in the dust! It's just plain weird."

"What else did you expect?" Ferb asked. "It's Candace. The pure image of "just plain weird." Maybe she's writing another Avengers fanfiction?"

"Well..." Phineas mumbled, and chuckled at the thought of it. "She didn't allow me to read it when I tried to peek over her shoulder," he said. "She yelled at me not to sneak up on her and to leave her alone. Then she slammed the door shut in my face."

"Sounds like she's done that a lot the past week."

"Please tell me if you think I'm being unreasonable," Phineas said. "It's almost Christmas. She should be spending time with us and the rest of her family instead of sitting all alone up there in her room!"

"Like she doesn't see enough of us all year," Ferb mumbled.

"Hey, whose side are you actually on?" Phineas said, moving his hands to his sides.

Ferb grinned. "You're right, though," he said. "She's been up there a lot."

"That's what I'm saying!" Phineas said. "What is she doing up there all the time? Jeremy is coming over as well tomorrow! Is he the only person on Earth who can keep her roaming under the living?"

Ferb shrugged. "Perhaps."

Phineas walked out of the kitchen and got his coat. "I'm going for a walk," he said.

"I'm going to walk around town a little. Maybe if I concentrate hard enough, I'll get an idea for something to do tomorrow just by doing that."

"Sure," Ferb said, while he jumped off the counter and threw the empty bag in the garbage can. He then left the kitchen as well, going upstairs.

"I just don't understand," Phineas mumbled to himself. "What could possibly be so important to her that she puts her own family and friends aside for it? She's never been like this."

He went through his memories in his mind, trying to recall Candace ever acting up. Sure, she'd done some freaky and weird stuff before, but that was just Candace being Candace. But this, no.

This was all different.

Could it have something to do with...?

Phineas stopped at a certain spot in the street he was walking in. He looked at the other side of the street, at a certain spot where once used to be a tree...

But that tree had been uprooted when his father and uncle crashed against it.

Phineas couldn't remember much of it, since he was barely three years old when it happened, and he'd mainly repressed it.

But why did it come back now? Suddenly, he remembered how much it'd hurt when he finally had figured out what had happened to his father. Not Lawrence of course, but his biological father, Martin...

His father had been fairly young, and on New Year's Eve they were going for a ride. Just Martin and two of his best friends.

Angelo, the other redhead of the trio, was pretty intolerant to alcohol, causing him to get tipsy after drinking the littlest amount. Luckily for them, neither of the three had drunk anything that day, but still, if they _would've..._

So David, the third friend, apparently had been agitating Angelo while he was driving, causing Angelo to drive faster and faster.

Unfortunately enough, one of the car's wheels were driving across a lit row of firecrackers at the moment they exploded...

The tire blew apart, causing the car to crash against the dreaded tree.

David and Angelo got away with a few minor injuries, but Martin was less lucky. It cost him his life.

Tears stung in Phineas' eyes as the memories he'd once managed to successfully repress returned, vivid and clear.

And that's when the idea for something to do tomorrow he wanted to think about on his walk hit Phineas' brain.

What if he could prevent the accident from happening? Would that mean he could save his father from this cruel fate?

Phineas snapped his fingers, as his eyes started to get an inspired sparkle. "That's it! Ferb, I know what we're going to do today!" he shouted, as he turned around and ran back home.


End file.
